40 years of Bomberman: Bomberman Kart DX
The enhanced version of a mostly standard kart racer made itself into much more than "just" a racing game.
July marks 40 years of Hudson Soft’s (and Konami’s) Bomberman franchise. Throughout the month, I’ll be covering Bomberman games, the versatility of its protagonist, and the legacy of both. Previous entries in the series can be found through this link.
There might not be a more “Bomberman was anything Hudson Soft wanted it to be” game out there than Bomberman Kart DX. It’s an enhanced redesign of 2001’s Bomberman Kart, which released in Japan and Europe but not North America for the Playstation 2. That doesn’t really get into what it is or what’s different this time around, though: “enhanced” doesn’t really do it justice, since the graphics were overhauled, sure, but they revamped how racing even works here, expanded the gameplay considerably with a story mode in addition to the existing GP Cup, retained the classic non-kart Bomberman multiplayer experience that was in the original, and, for some reason unknown, also included a Mystery Dungeon-style dungeon crawler inside of this kart racer. The only complaint to make about all of this is that Hudson didn’t publish it overseas, not even in Europe where the previous Bomberman Kart had reached. Which is doubly annoying in the present, because even emulating it becomes something of a chore. And yet, it’s a chore worth doing.
The original Bomberman Kart — developed by Racjin and published by Hudson Soft, just like its successor — didn’t necessarily feel like a quick cash-in on the popularity of kart racers, but it did feel a little unpolished, a little lacking in depth, and far too slow: it was very much Mario Kart 64 featuring Bomberman, with all the warts of that game’s slower gameplay, only now in 2001 on the more technically advanced PS2 instead of in 1996 on the Nintendo 64. It still played fine in the end, and the emphasis on more realistic high-speed turns and drifting that could punish you with ease if you didn’t do it right gave it some separation from Mario Kart 64, but not nearly enough for it to be a true standout title. One thing it did have going for it is that it was one of the few PS2 titles to utilize the pressure-sensitive face buttons, which helped make adjusting speed on turns something of an art that’s difficult to replicate now through emulation. But on original hardware, the effect is a good one.
Bomberman Kart DX upped the difficulty of the races, increased the speed, introduced a more satisfying HUD, pulled the camera back a little bit for a better view of the proceedings, and tightened up the controls. It all feels better to play, and there’s also far more of it in every way. The one downside is that it’s entirely in Japanese: there’s no European version in English to get your hands on — digital or otherwise — this time, and there hasn’t been an official or unofficial translation of the game like there has been for Bomberman Wars, either. If you’re going to play Bomberman Kart DX, you’re going to have to either deal with not knowing what anything says if you’re unable to read Japanese, or figure out a workaround, like using Google Lens to (very roughly) translate the menus on your phone screen, to get by. It’s worth the effort if only just to see what’s inside, because Bomberman Kart DX feels like it has a vitality than its predecessor lacked.
First, the racing itself. There’s a standard cup race, which is, in one of the only drawbacks of Kart DX, now just two-player instead of four — the PS2 has just the two controller ports, but Bomberman Kart was designed with a multitap in mind, as so many Bomberman games of the past on multiple systems were. In these races, you use items, just like in Mario Kart, to go faster, lay traps, and attack enemies. Though, one of the cups is purer racing, too, without item use, just to get you used to it or because you’d rather play that way.
And then there’s a story mode where you complete missions — racing missions — to progress. You can play without knowing what’s happening, it’s just going to take a lot of trial and error (hence the Google Lens translation recommendation above). Someone was kind enough to upload a six-hour video of a story mode playthrough a couple of years back, if you want to see just what it involves:
I cannot stress enough how much faster this both looks and feels compared to the original Bomberman Kart racing, which you can see below:
A cleaner HUD, improved character models in both look and size, and everything is faster. What’s not to love about the changes? Again, the original Bomberman Kart isn’t bad, it just lacked a spark that differentiated it and justified it as something other than a play on Mario Kart 64 that filled a then-hole in the PS2’s early library. Bomberman Kart DX feels more like its own thing, even if it still has those Mario Kart influences: many kart racers do, that’s just kind of the nature of the genre.
Bomberman Kart DX’s racing gameplay (other than the story mode) is enough like the competition in the genre that you don’t need an in-depth explanation of what it’s all about: it’s a kart racer, it feels good to play, it has a sense of speed and challenge. The dungeon crawler tucked away inside here, though? That’s a co-op (yes, co-op) action RPG where Bomberman can drop bombs that explode in a circular pattern rather than the traditional cross shape, or do things like wield or sword, throw a boomerang, defend with a shield… the kinds of things you’d expect an action RPG protagonist to be able to do. That makes this significantly different from the likes of Bomberman Quest or Bomberman Tournament, which are action-adventure games starring Bomberman and Bomberman-style gameplay. This is more of a blending than those were: again, Bomberman can wield a sword here.
You don’t need to be able to read Japanese in order to play this dungeon crawler, but having a general idea of what’s expected of you will help. The text turns yellow when something important to the story or where you need to go is said, so even if you just find a way to figure out what those bits said, you’ll be better off. Otherwise, you’re going to be doing a lot of running around and talking to every single NPC in the hopes it triggers… something. Google Lens might take a bit, but it’s also faster than speaking with an entire village every single time you finish a dungeon, especially since the dungeons aren’t particularly lengthy.
In the dungeons, you’ll find enemies to defeat, whether by explosion or blade or whatever else you pick up. There are temporary power-ups that increase your speed, or your bomb’s explosive power and range — the kind of stuff you always find in Bomberman titles, only now they’re on a timer until they run out instead of being permanent or semi-permanent upgrades. There are also more permanent items to find, such as the aforementioned sword, armor upgrades, bomb types, so you’ll want to open those chests and make sure you’re exploring the entirety of the dungeons.
It’s fun! Bomberman having an HP meter takes some getting used to, but you will. If you could only use bombs, the nature of the game might be a little different, since this isn’t like Bomberman Tournament where dungeons were designed with Bomberman’s traditional topdown mazes in mind. This feels more like Bomberman was inserted into someone else’s series and just rolled with it: since enemies can’t be as easily blocked off and trapped, and are always coming after you when they notice you, you’ll be glad you’ve got more than just your bombs and can go wild swinging a sword or defending with a shield, too.
There are nine different bosses you’ll face, with the bosses, unsurprisingly, not being at the end of every dungeon, but every region. The game begins with you in a village that’s hearing monsters underneath their homes and businesses, with some citizens missing and in need of finding. Bomberman goes underground through one such business, defeats some monsters, finds some treasures, and finds those who were lost. Rinse, repeat, until you defeat the Toy Soldier boss; after that, it’s off to the forest to see what else can you learn about this sudden influx of aggressive foes, and so on until — spoiler! — you have to face down Bagura, who was a regular antagonist for White Bomberman and friends, and continues to appear in more modern titles, as well.
It’s worth pointing out that pulling off the co-op with ease in the present is basically impossible. You either need a Japanese PS2 and a physical copy of the game, or a modified PS2 with a… well some copy of the game the modded PS2 would recognize. Or you need to figure out how to setup your Steam Deck or PC or whatever you emulate on to handle two players, and know someone who would care enough to want to mess around with your science experiment, to boot. Regardless of the how or the ease of it, who doesn’t love co-op sword-swinging action RPG goodness? Konami should really revamp this title in HD and bring it to the present, because it has a lot to offer those who are fine with some genre mixing.
Sure, looking back on how many courses and cups are in kart racers around 20 years later — Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for instance, is almost too big at this point (but not really) —Bomberman Kart DX seems a little small. But it makes up for its short track selection with the story mode, the dungeon crawler, and, of course, the traditional inclusion of multiplayer Bomberman madness. It made a Bomberman kart racer feel more necessary rather than just a hole to fill, and went above and beyond by including the story mode and action RPG side modes. The lack of four-player racing is annoying, sure, but that’s just the Playstation 2 for you — how four-player setups didn’t become the standard after the N64 is a mystery for another day. Otherwise, this is a game that was worth pushing through the language barrier to experience. With any luck, in the future, that won’t be necessary. When it comes to Bomberman games in the present, though, luck has not been anywhere to be found. Just like the games!
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Let down that the dungeon crawler part was a normal dungeon crawler and not a kart racer/ dungeon crawler fusion. No I don't know how that'd work, that's why I was looking forward to it. I do miss when games sometimes randomly had entire other genres of game included in them though.